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This is my latest bamboo shoe storage bench, or if you are Japanese, getabako. This time around I made this with vertical solid amber bamboo. I make and sell these shoe benches at our web site. The vertical solid bamboo is a single ply material, and it is a bit of a challenge having it milled up on a CNC machine. It tends to tear out at the corners. You need to go really slow with a CNC and mill it in multiple passes. We have these made on a CNC because we make them up as RTA for easy shipping. The hardware is Hafele Rafix. It makes for a nice easy to assemble, sturdy and durable shoe bench.

If you cut the bamboo plywood on a saw it really helps to use a scoring blade all the time. That's how I managed to clean up the rough spots from the CNC. Next time I plan on using the 3-ply bamboo. It mills a whole lot cleaner.

I used the new Mohawk Waterborne Pre-Cat Lacquer as the finish. It sprays nicely, lays down flat and seems very durable. The big problem with the stuff is that the overspray like to stick on all surrounding surfaces, especially on my glasses.

Joe

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wow! looked at your page and saw the $2500 shoe holder, must be some good margins when you sell one of those eh?? =) just wondering what your sales are looking like this year, 'n if ur market is mostly here or overseas? Really love the combo color one on your website though, that looks like something i'd want to build for my house…custom 'n clean, keep up the good work joe! look forward to seeing more asian designs from you
 

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Thanks for the kind words on my work. That one for $2500 I don't make anymore. I figure that I could be coaxed into doing it if someone wants to pay for it, so that's why the higher price for that one.

Take care,

Joe
 

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Ah, you are talking about me??? Yes, we call it Geta-bako.
Great work!

Japanese take shoes off at the entrance of the house, so every house has their Geta-bako at the entryway.
So this one is really small for getabako for Japanese house because ever person in the house uses it, but looks like it's good size for you guys, as a personal geta-bako in private room.

About bamboo, it is a serious problem in Japan now. Many bamboo forest or woods are just abandoned or just leave without any care to improve, so just growing and growing. Bamboo has strong root, so it can breat even concrete wall, or asphalt road. So the are ruining whatever next to it, meaning not as much as bamboo are used as it was before.
So it's good thing that you use it, and I should start thinking using it too. But bamboo is really different from other kind of wood, strong in vertical, and really easy to break horizontally. But there are numbers of beautiful bamboo work in Japan.
http://images.google.com/images?client=safari&rls=ja-jp&q=竹細工&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
 

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Domo arigatou Junji-san! Maybe Japan should follow China's lead and make plywood with the bamboo. The Chinese bamboo plywood sells for about $165 to $220 per sheet of 3/4" x 48" x 96" material.

Joe-chan
 

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they should if they can compete with the price (factoring in their overhead to get the operation started, of course), anything to get their exports up! heavily dependent on them and they're down almost 40% last year! 'n we thought our economy was bad…anyways, I hear ya on that one Joe. I'd imagine a secure down payment on something that pricey would make me build a, a, a HOUSE these days! lol ok maybe a really small one =)
 

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I really like this storage bench. Looks like something that would go really well in the entryway at my house.

Where do you source your "plyboo"? I've looked around for it here in Dallas and the only place that I found that MIGHT be able to get it for me said that it would be around $400 a sheet and they can't guarantee when they'd actually be able to get it in stock. Considering I was looking at about 3 sheets of it for the dresser I want to build, that's just a bit more steep than I could go for.
 

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The price of PlyBoo (a brand of Smith and Fong) is very high. Around here PlyBoo runs around $200 to $220 for a sheet of 3/4" x 48" x 96" material. I have bought other brands of bamboo plywood for as little as $117 per sheet. You can also get bamboo plywood from Totally Bamboo for about $165/sheet. They are located in San Marcos, CA; so I'm not sure how much shipping would run you.

For more info you might want to check out this article about bamboo plywood I posted on my web site.

Joe
 

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very interesting project
 

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Did you have any problems with the Mohawk pre-cat? We topcoated a couple of large desks with it a few weeks ago and had to strip it off because of whitish haze stripes.
 

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I have not had any problems with the Mohawk Waterborne Pre Cat so far. I have not had any haze.

Joe
 

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Best deals and 20% off. Fantastic designs its time to replace old shoe racks if you are in UK.
 
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